Don't Blog Your Boss

An interesting article I read from the New Zealand Herald. It talks about the consequences of blogging as far as employment is concerned. It reports of workers losing their jobs because of things they say about their employers in their personal blogs.

Here are a few notable excerpts from this article that you can read in full by clicking this link.

In the United States, Ellen Simonetti lost her job at Delta Airlines after she posted photos of herself on her weblog in diary of a flight attendant. Pictures showed her posing on board an aircraft wearing staff uniform. The company wasn't pleased. Until she included the photos, her site had been anonymous. Mark Jen lost his job at internet company Google after just 11 days with the firm in the US. His mistake? Keeping a daily online diary of his time there and revealing company tittle-tattle. In Britain, retail worker Joe Gordon became the first blogger in the country to be sacked because he kept an online diary that mentioned his "sandal-wearing" boss at bookseller Waterstone's. Britain's Guardian newspaper reported that Gordon was sacked for "gross misconduct" and for "bringing the company into disrepute".

The article concludes by saying that blogs although private in nature are public documents and therefore laws on publishing apply. By criticizing other people, your employer, your company or your customers, bloggers run the risk of being fired and can be exposed to defamation and slander charges. Careful, you never know, one of your readers may be your own boss.